National Public Radio has a long-running tradition of reading the Declaration of Independence aloud every Fourth of July. These days, they also tweet it out to all their social media followers. However, things can easily get misunderstood in 140-character chunks, as happened this year when a whole lot of people thought NPR was making some kind of political statement against President Donald Trump.

Independence Day, of course, marks the signing of the Declaration of Independence, perhaps the seminal moment in American history. The whole reason we all get July 4 off is to commemorate the events that took place in Philadelphia 241 years ago, events that led directly to the creation of the United States of America.

The Declaration, written by Thomas Jefferson, includes widely known passages like "all men are created equal," but also makes numerous references to the tyranny of King George III -- that, after all, was the impetus behind the colonists' decision to separate from Great Britain.

For some reason, though, a lot of folks -- presumably on the Trump-supporting side of the political spectrum -- thought that by tweeting about tyranny, NPR was attacking our current president, rather than a long-dead British monarch.

So the Declaration of Independence is "trash"? Probably what supporters of King George III thought, too.

Since that tweet, Darren Mills has become an unwitting "donor" to a slew of causes he evidently doesn't support:

We obviously don't support any kind of online harassment (and making political donations doesn't qualify as that), but if you pin your personal info at the top of your Twitter page, it shouldn't surprise you if people actually read it.